Fin - dose reduction 7/11 +5 358

I lowered Fin's dose this morning by 1u to see if he is having a rebound effect. His numbers are high at +5 and he seems miserable just laying in a heap on the floor like he does when his numbers are high. No ketones. But should I go back to his usual dose this pm? Is there a way to lower his blood glucose without insulin?

 

I'm sorry I don't remember all of Fin's story. Did he start insulin on May 16th for the first time or is that when hometesting started? How was the 3u dose arrived at? If his first dose was 3u and he never started lower, then yes, he may be in chronic rebound and I would recommend going down to 1u and holding it for several days as long as no ketones show up during that time. Glad to hear that Fin is doing better though!

 

That is when I adopted him and started home testing. They only did vet curves on him before that and he was on free-feed dry food too. I switched him over to wet-only and we did have a 150+ drop, but when you are starting in the mid-400's there is still room for improvement. I know that he was on ProZinc when I brought him home a few months ago and it is the only insulin he has been on since being diagnosed a couple of years ago with no regulation regardless of dose (always 350+ according to the vet records). They started him low and brought him up over a couple of years without luck. Not sure why no one thought to try a different insulin.

We are actually going to switch him to Lantus next weekend. The vet wants me to start his Lantus at 2.5u and work up if necessary.

 

I would probably try something between the 2 doses. With him my worry isn't so much rebound, it's that he could be hypoing. Really I don't know, it's just grasping at straws - those seizure things combined with a really high following PS made me wonder if he had some sort of hypo episode that triggered the seizure, or weird symptoms or whatever it is, followed by rebound. If that were the case, it might not be that the dose is excessively high. I would probably try something like 2 or 2.5u.

If he is acting worse though, then I agree that's not the way to go. If you were seeing rebound, the #s should improve on a lower dose. The only times I see rebound-like #s are around the seizure times, so it's hard to say what is cause & what is effect - could be something weird happened in those cycles that caused hypo/rebound and weird symptoms, or maybe just the seizures caused the higher #s.

Pretty much they need insulin to lower the #s. You can lower them with LC canned food, which you are already doing, and exercise can help, but as far as I know in most cases you can't get enough response from that to skip insulin.

Hope things go great for you guys on Lantus, it's so hard to know what is going on with him but hopefully you can get in more consistent good #s and the weird stuff will go away....

 

I am so happy that I have this board to help me or I don't know how I would get through this. I knew it would be tough adopting a diabetic cat, but man...it is so nerve-racking.

He finally got up and started moving around and he is less aggressive today which makes me feel better. I can't wait to try the Lantus and hope I can help Fin get to a healthy BG. Can you imagine walking around with BG's over 400 for three years? Honestly, I am surprised he doesn't have more issues.

I think I will do a 2.5 for his pm shot.

 

I would try the reduced dose for longer, one cycle on a dose change doesn't tell you much with ProZinc. It's very common to run high for a cycle or two even if the dose is better than the previous one. Quirky insulin, give it time.

 

True. And his numbers are not as high as when I brought him home from the rescue, so I will stick to it and see where we are in a couple days.